Dr. Marcus is conducting a laboratory experiment to investigate how different schedules of reinforcement affect the resistance to extinction of a target-touching behavior in domestic dogs. He trains twenty dogs to touch a red disc with their nose. Group 1 is reinforced with a food treat after every 5 nose-touches (a fixed-ratio schedule), whereas Group 2 is reinforced with a food treat after an unpredictable number of nose-touches that averages out to 5 (a variable-ratio schedule). Once the behavior is firmly established, Dr. Marcus ceases all reinforcement and records the duration (in seconds) that each dog continues to perform the nose-touching behavior before ceasing the response.
State the independent variable (IV) and dependent variable (DV) in this study.
Practise Edexcel A Level Psychology Content with exam-style questions for A Level Psychology. 1,059 questions covering Diagnosis of mental disorders (4 Ds), Classification systems (DSM and ICD), Schizophrenia and one other disorder, Treatments for the two disorders, Individual differences, and Developmental psychology, matched to the Edexcel A Level Psychology (9PS0) specification and written in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3 style. Every question includes a full worked solution and mark scheme, so you can see where marks are awarded rather than just whether you got the answer right.
